threeoranges (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} threeoranges) wrote, |
And of course, people on the other side of the argument feel like any compromise on *their* part will end in mandatory conservative Protestant Christian school prayer, the expulsion of anyone who doesn't believe in God and a complete gutting of the entire science department.
OH YEAH. Because in the end truth is truth, and science lessons won't give you marks for knowing a theological explanation of how the world began. Allow that, and (understandably) every sect will demand equal time for their genesis mythology in science lesson.
They are very worried that if people are given any chance to stop and ask "why are we doing this?" then they *won't* do it anymore. Kids spend more time at school than they do at home, and they fear that if God isn't brought up at school, they'll never think about Him at all. They already have enough trouble making sure their kids don't lose all their values by exposure to a secular world.
And again, OH YEAH. I'm sure they reason it out along the lines of "this is a system of morals, and one which keeps me interconnected with my fellow humans in the form of a Church, therefore I have MAKE SURE my child follows it. Why should they need to be intellectually satisfied as well?" Cue dissatisfied child, who wants answers and isn't getting any.
And - to give the believers credit - in the absence of faith-based morals schools SHOULD attempt to instill some form of ethical system in their students. However, lack of funding and staff demoralization often leads to the schools being little more than holding-pens for the kids, where they gain small knowledge and have no guidance at all. (In the UK there have been quite a few cases of parents lying about their religion to get their kid into a "faith" school, such as Church-of-England or Catholic, because these schools are perceived to have ethical codes and hence better-behaved pupils.) Faced with this, I suppose it's not surprising that fungelical (hee!) parents want to get their faith onto the curriculum in whatever way they can.
This morning, whilst randomly drifting, I found this blog post - quite an eye-opener and unexpectedly relevant to this discussion! I'm particularly taken with the commenter "Kate", who points out that relativism often undermines the liberal position: "Arguments between rocks (the one with extreme, rigid certitude) and bonbons (the one with a heigh-ho, unexamined attitude) rarely turn out well for the bonbon."
OH YEAH. Because in the end truth is truth, and science lessons won't give you marks for knowing a theological explanation of how the world began. Allow that, and (understandably) every sect will demand equal time for their genesis mythology in science lesson.
They are very worried that if people are given any chance to stop and ask "why are we doing this?" then they *won't* do it anymore. Kids spend more time at school than they do at home, and they fear that if God isn't brought up at school, they'll never think about Him at all. They already have enough trouble making sure their kids don't lose all their values by exposure to a secular world.
And again, OH YEAH. I'm sure they reason it out along the lines of "this is a system of morals, and one which keeps me interconnected with my fellow humans in the form of a Church, therefore I have MAKE SURE my child follows it. Why should they need to be intellectually satisfied as well?" Cue dissatisfied child, who wants answers and isn't getting any.
And - to give the believers credit - in the absence of faith-based morals schools SHOULD attempt to instill some form of ethical system in their students. However, lack of funding and staff demoralization often leads to the schools being little more than holding-pens for the kids, where they gain small knowledge and have no guidance at all. (In the UK there have been quite a few cases of parents lying about their religion to get their kid into a "faith" school, such as Church-of-England or Catholic, because these schools are perceived to have ethical codes and hence better-behaved pupils.) Faced with this, I suppose it's not surprising that fungelical (hee!) parents want to get their faith onto the curriculum in whatever way they can.
This morning, whilst randomly drifting, I found this blog post - quite an eye-opener and unexpectedly relevant to this discussion! I'm particularly taken with the commenter "Kate", who points out that relativism often undermines the liberal position: "Arguments between rocks (the one with extreme, rigid certitude) and bonbons (the one with a heigh-ho, unexamined attitude) rarely turn out well for the bonbon."